


American Pie

by thehiltster



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Sort of AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 05:40:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4865147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thehiltster/pseuds/thehiltster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An account of Dean Winchester's life as he keeps hearing a single song that he seems to attach to immediately.</p>
            </blockquote>





	American Pie

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAsV5-Hv-7U  
> American Pie by Don McLean.  
> I'd advise that you play it while you read :)  
> Enjoy!

The first time Dean Winchester hears it, he’s barely a month old and lying in his mother’s soft arms. The radio hums crackly. He doesn’t know the song but gurgles along to it and Mary laughs and fondly looks over to John who smiles at his son and gets a good feeling in his gut. He places Dean in the pen in the dining room and walks over to his wife.

“May I have this dance?” He asks, all courteous. His wife takes his hand and they spin and laugh.

The Winchesters are happy.

 

The next time he hears it, it has been a month since they started rolling around the country. He hasn’t spoken a word for weeks; only to hush Sam.

His ears prick up as he is pulled from scuffing the floor with his shoes. He nods his head to the song and for some reason he can’t recall, he knows it…vaguely…

He tries to remember the lyrics and Sam watches Dean innocently as he attempts to remember them. The song has nearly finished by the time he has got some paper and a pen. He writes down the final line at the bottom of the page and folds it as carefully as a four-year-old can and puts it in his pocket.

He carries it with him for the rest of his life.

_This’ll be the day that I die._

 

He’s seven and almost knows his father’s tapes off by heart. He’s bored and they’re at a fill up. He gets out of the car to stretch his legs and opens the door for Sam to walk around and he talks at Sam who listens intently. It doesn’t matter what he says, Sam will agree with him.

Sam hardly understands a word that Dean says, just gazes with wide, acknowledging eyes at him. Dean’s eyes graze the horizon and he picks out targets before being called off the grassy bank and leads Sam back to the car…

He asks his dad if he can change the tape. John grunts in agreement and Dean opens the glove compartment and takes out the box. He routes around and finds a tape that he hasn’t heard before.

A slow introduction begins to play and he recognises the song. He knows it from somewhere. It gets to about halfway through the song before he reaches into his pocket and brings out the piece of paper. He doesn’t have a pen or a pencil but now he knows the name of the song.

He falls asleep during the ride and forgets to replay the tape when they get to the next motel. He falls back into his line of duty to care for Sam and listens to his father talking to himself about the new case.

 

Four years later he finds the paper stuffed in the bottom of his duffel. Sam is doing his homework and Dean runs down the stairs. He got a cassette player for Christmas from Uncle Bobby.

They’ve spent the last year at Bobby’s and it’s the calmest Bobby has seen the boys. John is back for a bit and about to drive off when Dean runs after him. The car slows and John, perhaps more angrily than was necessary, asked Dean what he wanted.

He ran around the side of the car and John told Dean that he couldn’t go with him. Dean said that wasn’t it and opened the glove compartment and searched through the box for a minute before pulling out the tape.

“Can I borrow this?” He asked and John nodded, smiling sadly at his son.

It had been one of Mary’s favourite records. It strikes him how similar Dean and Mary are and he just about stops himself from breaking in front of Dean.

“Take care, son. Take care of Sammy.” He says and drives off.

Dean doesn’t know that he only drives five minutes before John has to pull over to cry.

Dean runs back and Bobby questions why Dean went after John, but didn’t get much of a reply.

 

Finally, Dean can write down the lyrics to the song. He does and realises that he hasn’t left enough room for the entire song by writing the last line at the bottom of the page, but can’t bring himself to get a new piece of paper.

It doesn’t feel right.

He crosses it out, just so you could read it and writes down the rest of the words. It takes him all afternoon and a lot of telling Sam to “get lost” before he finishes.

Bobby tells him off for treating Sam like that and he apologises. But it was worth it. Definitely.

 

It takes him a month to learn to sing it and then John comes back. He whisks Sam and Dean away and the tape gets left behind. It remains shoved into a draw in the bedside table of Dean’s room until Bobby finds it and puts it with his own collection. They don’t return for years and Dean only has the piece of paper to remember it by.

 

Two years later, and Sam has had another nightmare.

This is why John and Dean didn’t want Sam to know. He yells for Dean and Dean comes running in with a shotgun loaded at his shoulder.

He points it all around the room, but Sam is just sniffling and he puts it down. He glances back to the front door to make sure it’s bolted.

Sam reaches his arms out for Dean and he sits him on his knee and hugs him while Sam gives him a staccato account of his nightmare. Dean tells him that’s not what ghosts do with a smile and Sam gives him a watery smile back.

He tucks Sam back in and reminds him that he can kill anything that Sam wants him to and Sam rolls his eyes at Dean’s newly-formed teenage humour.

Before he leaves Sam asks:

“Can you sing me a song?”

Dean can’t deny him. He begins to sing something that he sung Sam until he was six. Sam shakes his head.

“Something new.”

He thinks and brings out the piece of paper that is still in his pocket. He can hardly remember how the song went, but gets it almost right. He’s sure.

Sam is fast asleep by the end.

Dean remembers the tape and calls Bobby.

He doesn’t pick up and by the time he does call back, they’ve gone.

 

A year later, they go back to Uncle Bobby’s and the moment they get there, Dean turns the room upside down to find the tape.

He doesn’t find it.

He returns downstairs, eyes glistening and Sam sees it and pats Dean’s arm. John is still outside, checking everything in the car. Bobby asks what the matter is and Dean asks him about a tape.

Bobby thinks for a second and looks through the drawer beneath his own meticulous record collection; a draw that looks home-made.

He finally pulls it out and Dean cries with joy, hiding it and his emotions as soon as John comes in. Bobby looks between the two and thinks to himself.

The last times Dean was happy was three years ago. It takes Bobby all of an hour to realise this.

 

Dean’s just turned sixteen and Sam has made fast friends with some kid and so Dean is left alone. He has just lost the last of the food money in a game of pool and walks home, bruised.

He begged for it back.

He had a missed call from Sam and returned it.

Sam wanted to know whether Dean was getting a takeaway. Dean teared up and choked that he was gonna get some peanut butter for Sam.

It made Sam happy, but he couldn’t fail Sam. He needed the peanut butter.

He saw a convenience store…

 

Two days later, John has come back to the motel. Sam called him a day ago. Dean didn’t come home…

He went down to the police station and saw his son, head in hands.

“Do whatever.” He said to the police and left, dragging Sam out of town.

 

Two months later, Dean finds a battered guitar in the cupboard. Sonny helps him tune it and he teaches him a few chords.

A month after that, and a few lessons later he can play it. He plays and sings until his fingers bleed and he’s hoarse. He writes down the chords and notes alongside the lyrics on that piece of tattered paper.

 

The following day he asks her to prom and plays it to her and she cries when she accepts and its one of the happiest days of his life.

 

Prom is tomorrow and Sam is outside. He asks John if he can stay one more night.

“After what you’ve done?” He gets coldly rejected and, with hunched shoulders, gets in the car. Sam can see how sad Dean is and puts a hand on his shoulder. John goes drinking as soon as they arrive wherever they are.

Dean doesn’t smile for two years.

 

When he does smile, it’s the senior Christmas dance and it plays. The song plays and a girl catches his eye. They dance a little and she proposes something at him but he leaves as soon as it’s finished and breaks into the music rooms across campus.

It takes him four hours to remember to play it perfectly and when he does he cries because something touches him inside.

 

Two years later, Sam runs away on his watch. John beats him to a pulp and leaves him with the car and some cash.

He kicks him out of the motel and both men cry in anguish, meanwhile Sam is leaving them both with a smile on his face.

He doesn’t know that his brother can barely move he’s in so much pain.

Dean turns the ignition, but remembers the tape. It’s in his duffel and he gets it. He plays it on repeat and somehow manages not to accidentally run off the bridge. He runs the engine almost dry.

 

The tape gets lost underneath one of the seats after Dean goes to hell. Sam doesn’t know what the tape it, but he finds it after a month of Dean being gone.

He plays it and remembers Dean singing it in the shower; singing it to him when he couldn’t sleep; remembered Dean rarely playing it in the car and only playing it if he thought Sam was asleep; Dean turning it off immediately when Sam woke up or made his consciousness known.

He would always get flustered and Sam keeps the tape with him wherever he goes, in his loyal duffel.

 

It’s only when they find the bunker and move in that he unpacks his duffel properly and finds it again.

He knocks on Dean’s door and he is silently looking through photos.

“I found this in my duffel.” He wordlessly hands it to Dean. Dean who literally bursts out crying right there and then. Sam doesn’t know what to do. And then Dean’s laughing.

He says incoherent things between the laughs and the crying and Sam stands there hopelessly. He stays for another five minutes before realising that Dean probably won’t be able to do anything for at least a day.

 

Sam hears it being played again and again over the course of the next month and tries to ask Dean about it but Dean can’t answer. It’s _his_.

 

He listens to it until he’s, not sick of it, but can’t take it anymore. He buys a pedestal for the tape and places it on his chest of drawers. He keeps the case immaculate.

 

He’s a demon the next time he hears the song. He looks to the juke box and smashes it before running away. He feels emotion for a moment and then the moment is gone.

 

Castiel is with him, and he’s been cured. He looks at the ceiling and wonders…

Cas looks around the room – he hates to admit it, but he knows the layout off-by-heart. He sees the tape in the clear box and pillow and has wanted to know what was in it for a long time.

“Dean, what’s that tape?” He asks and Dean looks up.

He doesn’t remember why he smashed the juke box.

“It’s nothing, Cas.” Dean brushes off. He hates talking about the tape. It’s the one thing that, besides Sam and Baby, has been constant his entire life. It wouldn’t leave him, no matter what.

It was in his head.

Dean looks at his best friend and he can’t keep it from him.

“Maybe one day, Cas.” He promised, “Maybe one day”.

 

That day comes a year later and Dean is young and happy and clear and Sam has a job as a part-time lawyer and part-time hunter and Cas is safe.

Sam’s working on a case for his “normal” job, as he liked to call it. (Dean would snort and roll his eyes.)

They’re driving and it’s the middle of the night. Cas no longer sits rigidly, and relaxes back into the chair and Dean is cruising, an arm thrown across the back of the front seats.

At some point he begins to stroke through Castiel’s messy mop of hair and massage his scalp a little. It’s gone back to sticking up at the front, like it did back when they first met.

He only becomes aware of this when Cas begins to lean in and lets a contented sigh blow through him.

It plays, the radio crackling, like the very first time he heard it.

He looks over at Cas, and thinks about the road, and thinks about Sam and finally he feels safe.

His name is Dean Winchester and he is 38 years old and finally, he’s happy. He begins to sing it and, even in hell, he kept his voice to himself and Cas, though picking his pieces up, never saw this.

It was what made Dean Winchester’s soul, and now it shone brighter than ever and Dean lost himself in signing, so heartfelt, so purely, that Cas cries.

Dean finishes and Cas is sniffling still and Dean looks over at Cas.

“You okay, buddy?” He asks and Cas nods and Dean begins to worry because Castiel, who used to not give a damn if a town blew up to keep his brother locked up, had not stopped crying.

He pulls over and Cas tries to pull himself together but then there was Dean.

Dean can’t do anything, and just pulls Castiel into a hug and the final jigsaw piece of Dean Winchester’s heart turns and clicks. He pulls back and knows what he wants.

“Cas?” he asks.

“Yes?” his lip quivers and Dean can’t resist.

“I love you.” He breathes out. And Castiel kisses him wetly, and Dean takes every moment he can.

They drive home and Castiel now can see the whole of Dean Winchester’s heart. He kept it secret for so long and Dean can finally live.


End file.
